Renunció
by WildwingSuz
Summary: Summary: Mulder's worst fears realized.


**Author's Notes: ** I got this idea from watching the end of Amor Fati—I remember thinking that after all the crap they've been through, I wouldn't blame either or both of them for running away.

Thanks so much to Marissa for helping me flesh out this idea, and for several of the lines in the last few paragraphs.

**Spoilers:** Amor Fati post-ep

**Summary:** Mulder's worst fears realized.

* * *

**Renunció  
**Rated PG-13  
By Suzanne Feld

"How in the hell did you find me, Scully?" I didn't stop what I was doing, though I knew without looking that my ex-partner had just come around the side of the cabin and spotted me on the back deck. Even after almost six months of being apart our bond was intact; I could still sense her when she was near.

"You certainly didn't make it goddamned easy," she snapped, clearly annoyed, as she climbed the short flight of stairs. I guessed I couldn't blame her, but I was too pissed to care.

"When I left, Scully, I told you that I didn't want to be found," I retorted, finishing the trout fly with one final delicate knot. Tying fish flies was my new hobby, as was reading the complete works of Alexandre Dumas—again. He had been my favorite author as a child and I was enjoying re-reading his works as an adult. I often read while sitting at the end of the dock with fishing lines and my toes in the water.

I finally looked up at Scully, and nearly recoiled in shock. The vibrant, healthy, spirited agent I had left in the dank FBI basement office was gone, and in her place was a thin, haggard, angry woman with lank hair that barely moved in the breeze gusting up from the lake, and no makeup which showed the mole on her upper lip. Instead of a neat business suit she wore a pair of oversized jeans with a man's plain white pocket t-shirt tucked haphazardly into them, and ragged tan deck shoes. I almost didn't recognize her other than her voice and those snapping blue eyes, though they were now duller than I remembered. "What the hell happened to you?" I said unthinkingly, standing and staring down at her.

She marched over to me and before I could react, slapped me hard across the face. "That's for not letting me know if you were alive or dead!" she snarled up at me as I put a hand to my cheek, shocked into immobility for the moment. "It's been hell since you left, Mulder, _hell! _ Didn't you give a damn what would happen to _me_ when you disappeared? How I would feel, how I would react?"

Without thinking about it I pulled her into my arms. She was stiff against me for a moment, then relaxed and all but melted to my body, her sharp hipbones poking into my upper thighs. She felt like a fragile skeleton in my embrace, her dry hair rasping against my half-grown beard. I felt her arms go around my waist and I tightened mine around her shoulders, breathing in her familiar scent that had kept me company over so many long drives and flights and stakeouts over the years. I hadn't realized just how badly I missed her until I saw her. I didn't want to have to explain, or apologize, or do anything but stand here and hold her and not think like I'd been not thinking for the last few months. But I knew that was over, at least for a while.

Finally I heaved a sigh and stepped back, moving my hands to her thin, bony shoulders. "I simply couldn't take it anymore, Scully, you of all people should understand that," I said, still trying to reconcile the gaunt face and stringy hair in front of me with the spirited, beautiful Dana Scully that I had known for the past six years. This woman looked ten years older, with dark circles under her narrowed eyes and a mean set to her mouth. "And no, I didn't realize that it would do...this... to you. I'm sorry."

She had begun to tense up as I talked, but relaxed again at my final words. "An apology? You _have_ changed," she said snidely, moving away and looking down at my scattered workspace on the patio table. "So. While I've been fighting the Syndicate and scouring the earth for you, you're... doing what here?"

"Tying trout flies," I said, trying not to react defensively. "Listen, Scully—"

"No, goddamn it, Mulder, you listen," she hissed, whirling around to glare at me. Despite her rundown condition, that Scully fire was still there underneath. "Do you have any fucking idea how bad things have gotten? Not only are the X-Files closed, without you the remnants of the Consortium have banded back together and are now more dangerous than ever. I've been censured and fired from the FBI because I refused to stop looking for you, and both the Gunmen and I have gone through every cent we had—and then some—in the search. Now I find you here, in a remote cabin in fucking Maine of all places, chilling without a care, chubby and bearded!"

I put my hands to my stomach defensively; I had stopped running and swimming as much as I used to and perhaps gained some weight, but chubby? A little poochy, maybe.

"I had to find you because the invasion is coming early. We've only got days at this point before they arrive, and you and I are among the few whose blood carries the antibodies necessary to vaccinate the planet. I can't do it all by myself, Mulder."

I felt something break inside me, the walls I had put up crashing down like the alien spaceship in MIB. "Okay Scully—" was all I got out before there was a deafening shot that echoed out across the lake, and Scully fell against me. I caught her in my arms, feeling searing wetness soaking into my shirt and running down my body, and looked over her bloody head to see two of our old nemeses standing where I had had first spotted her. Krycek held the smoking gun, while Old Smokey waved his Morley at me with that horrible grin wreathing his jowly chops. "We knew she'd lead us to you," he said in that gravelly voice. "Now, Mr. Mulder, you'll be coming with us."

I couldn't hold Scully's dead weight anymore and gently lowered her to the deck, kneeling and cradling her in my arms. "Fuck you."

"Fine. Dead or alive, it doesn't matter to me," he said. "Go ahead, Alex, another head shot so he doesn't bleed out too much. We need every drop from both of them."

I looked up into the barrel of the gun, the same one that had probably killed my father and Scully's sister, and—

I jerked awake, finding myself sitting up in my empty bed in the near-darkness of my familiar bedroom. I was shaking like a leaf, and I could still feel Scully falling into my arms, her hot blood soaking my skin. Without thinking, I reached over and picked up my cell from the bedside table, hitting 1 for Scully.

"Mulder? Something wrong?"

Just the sound of her groggy voice steadied and calmed me. "Sorta," I rasped, and then moved the receiver away momentarily to and clear my throat. "Nightmare. Sorry I woke you, wasn't thinking when I called."

"S'okay, it's almost six anyway," she yawned, and I heard covers rustling. "What was the nightmare? Dare I ask?"

I thought on it for a moment. Though I normally didn't share things like this with Scully, for the first time in a while I felt the need to unburden myself to someone. "I—I dreamed that you were shot right in front of me, I caught you, and I can still feel your blood soaking into my shirt," I said hesitantly, wondering if that was too much information. I certainly wasn't going to tell her what she'd looked like, and I was a bit ashamed of myself that I'd dream that she'd fall apart just because she couldn't find me. But when I remembered how I'd felt and looked when she was abducted, maybe it wasn't so far off the mark.

"Sounds like the kind of nightmare I should be having after what we just went through—when I saw you on that operating table, Mulder, I thought for sure you were dead," she said and I heard the slight tremor in it.

"There was more to it, Scully," I said hesitantly, throwing off the light sheet, sitting up and putting my feet on the floor. I scrubbed one hand through my unruly hair as I continued, "I dreamt that I had just up and walked out on you, and you found me hiding out in a cabin in Maine, of all places." Thanks to my eidetic memory I remembered most of my dreams, though I often made an effort to forget or, at the very least, ignore them. "You were furious with me for leaving, and it made me realize that I had done the wrong thing. But before I could tell you any of that, our old friend Smokey showed up and shot you in the head, right into my arms where I felt you die."

She hummed lightly, thoughtfully. "I'm no psychologist," she said in a light tone, which I knew was a playful dig at me, "But I'd say you're still thinking about that alternate life Smoking Man had you imagine while you were under."

"Actually..." I hesitated, and then decided to tell her the truth, "I have been having those thoughts more and more lately. Since I got back from Tunguska," I admitted.

"What thoughts?"

"Of... of running away, of giving up, not putting us both through this anymore," I said in a rush, both embarrassed to admit it and glad I'd gotten it out. For all my bravado and going on and on about finding Samantha, more than once I'd been tempted to just give it all up. "Just fucking leaving all this shit behind. My sister and dad, your sister, the betrayals, and the constant paranoia and danger... enough. Even though it seems to be my fate to be their whipping boy, I can't help but wonder sometimes if I can get out from under their thumb."

A beat of silence, then, "Who doesn't?"

I was taken aback; had I dialed the wrong number? Where was my take-no-prisoners Scully? "What?"

"Who wouldn't? Who doesn't? When things get tough, how can you not imagine an easier life without all the stress and strife? What's with all this fate nonsense you've bought into? Who says either of us has to do anything, if in fact we even had a fucking clue what to do half the time... they're manipulating us like puppets most of the time."

I had no idea she thought like that, I realized. I had always assumed that Scully as an all-ramming-speed-ahead person, never having thoughts of giving up. "I've... I've thought for so long that my destiny was—"

"Who says you have a fate or destiny, Mulder? Smoking Man? Jesus Christ, I watched the surveillance footage from the DoD operating theater, and that man is mad as a hatter! You can't believe anything he says!"

My eyebrows were about at my hairline and now I was wide-awake. For once, for the only time I could remember in our long partnership, she had me speechless. I got up and went into the living room, turning on the TV out of sheer habit but keeping the volume low. I recognized the movie playing, and thought of how apt it was right now.

She sighed over the line, and I heard the sound of something clanking. Probably making coffee, I thought, and that steadied me. No matter how crazy or surreal things sometimes got, the constant of Scully having to start the day with her high-octane Starbucks home brew never changed. "Mulder... if we did decide to give this up and run away, where would we go? Where _could_ we go that they couldn't find us? I've got the implant, and you've still got traces of the black oil they infected you with. We're a couple of guinea pigs and they're not going to let us go without a fight."

"We, Scully?" I couldn't resist pointing out. "If I ran away, would you come with me?"

She chuckled, low. "Yeah, probably to drag you back just like in your dream," she said. "We can't give up now, Mulder, as much as it's a temptation."

"Hmmn... Speaking of, you know it seems to me that you're like Judas in _The Last Temptation of Christ_," I remarked, watching said movie, and then hurried to add, "Not the betrayal part. Where Judas keeps Jesus on track for his destiny."

"I've seen the movie, I know what you mean," she assured me. "I can handle that role. Though it might just be me who finally has enough and runs away," she added in a dry voice. "By the way, comparing yourself to the Messiah is a bit much, even for you."

"Well I certainly have you around to remind me that I have feet of clay. Thanks for keeping it real, red." She laughed and the sound was a balm to my soul, helping push away the tatters of the nightmare. "Scully, if I could find you in Antarctica, I can find you anywhere on this planet," I assured her, relieved that we were back to our status quo. No matter what I dreamt, I would keep fighting the good fight as long as I had this amazing woman by my side.

"Mulder?"

"Yeah?"

"What are you wearing?"

_finis_


End file.
